OK, so being new to Colorado, I'm pretty new to hail storms. Are they that common in the front range? Excluding softball size hail, is there anything I can do if I am at work and it starts to hail?

I work for HP in Fort Collins, and there is zero covered parking, not even for the highest ranking person at the facility. Short of driving home and working the rest of the day from home, would an outside car cover provide any protection from even minor hail? If so, which cover? The OEM outside car cover?

Or, should I just not worry about it?

I don't even have any car yet, its still at port awaiting vessel, but I detailed car in college, and now I am very crazy about my paint, dings, dents, etc.. I am just being stupid? It is only a car...

It is only a car until you see the pics from maybe 2 months ago from a wicked hail storm. It stormed even in Phoenix, AZ. One guys car looked f'ing TOTALLED to me. Maybe it wasn't technically "totalled", but it looked like it. Huge dents EVERYWHERE.

Well, I've been driving here for 20 years and can tell you that we do get our fair share of hail storms. Some are certainly worse than others. I've had hail damage once (1998) - maybe that tells you what your odds are? Two days after I got my car back from having the hail damage fixed, some guy backed into me... so maybe that's a better example of MY odds at the time.

Without covered parking there isn't a whole lot you can do mostly because unless you're watching live local weather, it's impossible to tell when it's about to begin, how big the hail will be, if you need to do anything about it (pea-sized hail? meh.). Only thing I can think of would be a couple of thick blankets to help absorb the impact. Even then, if the hail stones are quarter sized or bigger... that may not help all that much.

On the plus side, think of the orange peel you could eliminate with a new paint job!